Taking the heat, storieshttp://www.sfgate.com/technology/collectionRss/Taking-the-heat-stories-20474.php
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Looking-to-sky-to-fight-climate-change-4170475.php
article4170475
If Neukermans' team of researchers can fine-tune the mechanism to spray just the right size and quantity of salt particles into the sky, scientists might be able to make coastal clouds more reflective. The ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events like droughts, floods and hurricanes are increasing. Even if public policymakers manage to significantly curtail future fossil-fuel emissions - the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that the vast majority of climate scientists blame for climate change - the hundreds of gigatons we've already pumped into the atmosphere have probably locked in a series of life-altering consequences. Balancing risk, rewardThe concept of "cloud brightening" dates back 22 years, when British physicist John Latham first proposed it in a little-noticed paper in the journal Nature. [...] as the threat of global warming rises, it and other "geoengineering" strategies have shifted from the scientific fringes into mainstream debate. Geoengineering is a broad category for techniques that could remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or reflect away more heat, including things as innocuous as painting roofs white and as controversial as spraying sulfate particles into the stratosphere. The basic idea behind cloud brightening is to equip ships with mechanisms like the ones Neukermans' team is designing and aim them at the relatively low-lying clouds that hug the western coasts of continents. [...] many scientists worry that nations simply won't cut fossil-fuel emissions enough to prevent rising temperatures from unleashing humanitarian and ecological calamities. [...] that's simply not happening, even as predictions for rising temperatures this century soar past 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold that most climate scientists point to as the clear danger zone. In 1997, he founded Xros, an optical switch company that pulled off the holy grail of telecom at the time: using tiny mirrors to move data throug ]]>
Sun, 6 Jan 2013 03:56:19 UThttp://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Projecting-warming-s-impact-on-Bay-Area-4170481.php
article4170481
Average global temperatures have ticked up by about 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and two-thirds of that increase has taken place since 1975, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A variety of studies have concluded that current rates of fossil fuel emissions could push global temperatures up by as much as 6 degrees Celsius by 2100. To put that in context: A 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that an increase of just 3.5 degrees would drive into extinction 40 to 70 percent of the species for which the impact of global warming has been studied. Terra incognitaWithout drastic changes to fossil fuel emissions, the impacts of global warming will land on the Bay Area with a brute force that pays no regard to our relatively liberal politics, farsighted state climate regulations or fondness for hybrid vehicles. By 2050, rising sea levels could put land around the bay equivalent in area to six San Franciscos at risk of serious flooding, including the region's airports, a stretch of Silicon Valley high-tech campuses and the homes of more than 100,000 residents, according to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. ]]>
Sun, 6 Jan 2013 03:56:20 UThttp://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Cloud-brightening-theory-to-prototype-4170478.php
article4170478
Cloud formation depends on what are known as cloud condensation nuclei, tiny particles like dust that provide a surface on which water can make the leap from a vapor to a liquid. The belief is that spraying a fine mist of salt water toward coastal clouds will provide additional salt particles for water droplets to condense around. Stephen Salter, a British scientist working on the nuts and bolts of cloud brightening, advocates using a fleet of remote-controlled vessels powered by so-called Flettner rotors, highly efficient sails fueled by the wind. Bay Area researcher Armand Neukermans, who is overseeing a team of engineers working to develop a cloud-brightening prototype, said that cargo vessels already sailing those waters could be equipped for the task, perhaps with the nudge of carbon credits for their owners. Salter has developed "micro-nozzles," silicon wafers about 8 inches around perforated with about 1.5 billion tiny holes, through which the salt water can be pumped, wrote author Jeff Goodell in "How to Cool the Planet." ]]>
Sun, 6 Jan 2013 03:56:20 UT